Today I went on a food walking tour through Bang Rak, an old part of Bangkok. The goal was to visit five restaurants and taste ten dishes in total - all in the course of three hours. Needless to say, I didn't eat breakfast.
Our first stop was a restaurant called Charoen Wieng Pochana. The 80-year old owner sat at one of the tables and waved at us - I'm guessing the walking tour comes by almost every day. Their specialty was roasted duck, and so we had a small portion of traditional roasted duck on rice:
The restaurant was Thai-Chinese, so the food wasn't as spicy as Thai food usually is. That doesn't mean that it wasn't good, of course. The mild, aromatic sauce complemented the roasted duck flavor very well.
Next, we stopped at a Muslim restaurant. They had a variety of dishes in a long showcase, but our guide chose something that was hidden in a big metal pot, called curry lava on egg. This was the most delicious food I'd had in a while, and definitely the best of the day. It consisted of some freshly cooked rice noodles in a curry soup, garnished with egg, onions, peanuts, tofu and a bit of coconut cream. Yum!
After this meal, we walked for a little bit to reach the Chao Phraya river ferry. We crossed the river and sat down in a small restaurant called Yum Rod Sab, right next to the small footpath leading away from the ferry pier. Their food was delicious too, but I was slowly getting to the point of being too full...
We didn't eat the fish on this tray, though I thought it looked very good. Our guide explained that the lemongrass stalks in the fish mouths are there to counter the typical fishy smell.
The final restaurant, Kallaprapruek, was quite fancy in comparison to the other places. They served a green Thai curry with Indian roti - apparently the owner is a big fan of Indian food. The curry was excellent - but I was full to the point of bursting.
Desert was a big scoop of coconut sorbet; anything more substantial, and they would have had to deal with an exploded human. Luckily, ice-cream always seems to fit :-)
